Best Ways to Heal Hormonal Acne Naturally and Effectively

There are many different acnes and all require variations for optimal treatment – here is the protocol for hormonal acne due to estrogen dominance (this is the most common form of hormonal imbalance, yet there are others). Do these things and I promise the hormonal acne will decrease substantially! 🙂

Symptoms:

Large, deep and painful cysts around the mouth, chin and neck. Non-painful but deep and hard long-lasting cysts that never come to a head around the mouth and chin but also on other parts of the face. More acne before menstruation or during ovulation. Irregular/painful periods, exaggerated PMS symptoms.

Possible causes:

Accumulation of bad estrogen in the body

Other hormonal imbalance

The protocol below is designed for bad estrogen dominance, but will go a long way towards treating other hormonal imbalances too.

I’m not going to lie, it’s complicated and while there are a few overarching things you can do that will most likely move you into a more balanced state (noted below), it is best to consult with an experienced healer or naturopath for the best results.

Anyway, I have never seen an expert and have seen much improvement with my hormonal acne by introducing a few supplements and changing my diet and lifestyle mildly, with a sustainable pace and in an enjoyable way. I believe you know yourself best, and it is not at all a waste of time or futile to try to figure this out for yourself, despite what I said above about consulting a healer or naturopath. (Let me also interject and clarify that when I say healer or expert, I do not mean a doctor of Wester medicine who will no doubt throw a bunch of pills at your symptoms and never even think to address the root cause, quite possibly distressing your body and hormones even more.)

So bottom line: trust yourself, connect to intuition, trust the process, relax into the process and most importantly, have faith that your hormones will rebalance. Really, believing is absolutely key.

magnesium (Magnesium supports healthy hormone activity in the body and can contribute to better sleep (which is great for hormones!)

I know this is a lot, but for me personally the 3 things that helped the most were: Estroblock (DIM), Vitex (HUGE help with regulating my period), and Reishi (very adaptogenic and supportive for the liver.) I SHOULD also probably introduce fermented cod liver oil, but am still looking for a brand.)

try to snack less and space out your meals more. If you’re constantly moving food through your body, the liver is constantly working and never gets a chance to rest. Try to space meals at least 4 hours apart and don’t eat for at least 4 hours before bed. This includes drinks with calories but herbal teas, water, coffee or tea without cream or sugar are fine.

Lifestyle Therapy

Exercise gently

avoid intense extended cardio – this can throw off your hormones even more

do gentle exercise like walking, swimming, gentle yoga and stretching

do short bursts of heavy weight lifting or exertion. The key word is short – this should not take long. You literally only have to do 2 or 3 sets to get beneficial hormone reactions going, so aim for 10-15 minutes tops. Too much intensity is detrimental.

get LOTS of sleep. Seriously, this helps SO MUCH. Once I fractured my sacrum and was bed ridden for a month and slept a lot and my skin got as clear as a baby’s bottom. Cannot emphasize this one enough.

Get outside – exposure to sunlight helps with healthy vitamin D levels (note: this reaction happens on the skin, so don’t wear sunscreen – at least not for the first few minutes you get outside, otherwise you are preventing the reaction from happening)

Take salt baths or walk barefoot on the earth (like grass or sand. Concrete doesn’t count. This is very rebalancing to the body on all levels, including hormonal and emotional.)

Skincare Therapy

Most important: use a cyst dissolving spot treatment + a very gentle, acne inhibiting skincare routine

cleanse very gently and use cleansers without chemicals and cleansers not contained in plastics (ie either oil or herbal cleansers housed in glass). I recommend any of the moss cleansers, but you cannot go wrong with Cleansing Flours or Beurre Celeste – both are very gentle, depends on if you prefer oil cleansing or herbal cleansing.

do not touch your face

do not WORRY about your face – stress and negative emotions literally make acne worse

use a calming facepack over the acne at MOST once a day to help decrease redness and swelling (like neem powder, milk powder, activated charcoal or Cleansing Flours used as a mask) (join the facemask of the month club for recipes and for ingredients)

moisturize only with an anti-bacterial dry oil (like moss‘s Clear Resolution which contains anti-bacterial perilla and clove oils and a therapeutic blend of essential oils to suppress acne)

use a non-irritating, gentle spot treatment that contains the correct blend of essential oils like Zen Physic. Zen Physic has a proprietary blend of essential oils designed to literally help the cysts dissolve. It is different than what you would use on other types of acne and very effective.

it is sooo important to use natural products on the face – any chemicals (either internal or external) could cause further hormonal distress and imbalance

Final Takeaways

balance hormones with natural supplements

eat healthy fats

eat clean – no processed food or food with additives

exercise gently

get lots of sleep (cannot stress this enough!)

use a cyst dissolving spot treatment when needed

use a very gentle, all natural, acne inhibiting skincare routine

Hope this helps – book a consult if you have any questions or need help sorting through all this! 🙂 Note – DO NOT overwhelm yourself trying to do ALL of this – within these lists you will find the few things that work for you – then take those and leave the rest. Trust your intuition and be prepared for a little trial and error.

Really great post! I’m thrilled but not at all surprised to see you follow the Weston A. Price approach to food (I despise the word diet). I grew up organic and vegetarian (my mother was pescetarian but from age 3 on I no longer liked any sea animals), and was chronically borderline anemic as a result. Food has always been major for me as both a cook and a health fanatic, but WAP really helped me so much. I was already eating organic, grassfed/free range meat from college on and more than half my calories from fat, but moving exclusively to monounsaturated and saturated fats (all those years of canola & sunflower oil, sigh!) getting into bone broths, fermented foods and sprouted grains later had amazing results. Plus switching to mostly red meat over poultry. I never ate pork and I don’t recommend others do except in moderation because even the best raised pork has a poor ratio of fats compared to red meats. Lamb is the best meat, IMO.

Do you have a recommendation for a good fish oil supplement? I take high doses since I don’t eat any fish, and I try to buy distilled oil from small fish but I never know if I can trust the claims, and the supplement market here in Europe is minuscule compared to the US (though I am willing to order from there). I am too concerned about the mercury and other pollutants which accumulate in the liver to take cod liver oil.

Regarding grains, I think your stance is a bit extreme, though I certainly believe that many do not tolrears gluten well or at all, at least not from modern monocrops. But I was also a long distance runner prior to becoming crippled & disabled, so I needed more carbs. Even when not active, though, I tolerate carbs very well, even refined ones – though I do limit them as much as I can considering I can no longer cook much. I mention all of this because I believe that different people benefit from different approaches to food, within reason. For estrogen dominance, however, I agree with your advice.

I have actually the opposite problem, my estrogen and progesterone are low and normal respectively, but my testosterone is undetectable, my DHEAS is very low, and my SHBG too high. I believe due to my being on continuous high dose opiates for nearly 10yrs now and being so sedentary (mostly bedridden) due to my extreme pain and fatigue. I’m just trying DHEA supps now (Zinc didn’t seem to help, though I do think I was low), and if that doesn’t help I will be talking to my dr about T supplementation. I never ever had hormonal acne until the past couple years, and now I often but not always get small whiteheads or shallow cysts on my chin right after ovulation (supposedly the side of your chin you get a zit on corresponds to the side you ovulated from, which through charting and ultrasound I have found to be true for me). I also get acne around my mouth before/during my period, and I never had PMS before. I will try to report back after I’ve been taking the DHEA for a while in case the info could help others who aren’t estrogen dominant,

I have observed that if I don’t eat as much butter and red meat as usual, my hormonal acne is more frequent, so I think the healthy saturated animal fats are likely good for most hormonal imbalances. My healthy fat consumption is also directly related to how much high quality fertile fluid (EWCM) I have before ovulation, more than any other factor.

I definitely agree with getting enough sleep; I often sleep too much (9-16hrs) but sometimes can’t sleep due to pain for 24-48hrs and the difference is very obvious. Sleep helps improve skin more than anything because it can only heal during sleep.

One major rule I would add for all skin problems but especially hormonal acne due to E dominance is drinking plenty of water! I think at least 10-12 8oz glasses a day (herbal tea is an acceptable substitute), 8 glasses is not enough IMO. It’s so important of you’re trying to detox and a million times yes, avoid plastic bottles! If you hate drinking plain water like I do, get a CO2 machine and make your own sparking water or buy glass bottled sparkling water in bulk. There are natural, calorie free flavour enhancers you can add too, some with stevia and others not sweet at all. Just lemon slices make a huge difference for me! Make sure to use organic lemons of course. And there is always herbal or white/green tea, which can double as a supplement (such as Vitex or Green tea).

I can’t wait to read your post on acneic rosacea! I don’t know if it’s just me, but it seems like very few people with rosacea have the acneic type. I think my bumps might actually be a form of low grade dermatitis, which I have always been exceptionally prone to, because irritants seems to cause them to flare up the most. Synthetic fragrance and even some EOs are frequently to blame, and just from sniffing them in a small container, not even from more direct contact! Many synthetic chemicals in conventional products from laundry detergents to hand creams have the same effect. Avoiding irritants/drying skincare products and using anti inflammatory, very hydrating, oat based products has helped reduce my rosacea the most. I should also add that it developed completely out of the blue a couple weeks after my late husband suddenly died 11yrs ago, so I believe the stress/trauma triggered it in my case. Has anyone else heard of rosacea being triggered in this manner or experienced it personally?